Complacency supplants anxiety as fiscal cliff is evaded. But debt-ceiling fight threatens a replay of the fiasco of 2011.

Investors have to answer that question after stocks surged 4.6% last week once the pols in Washington sidestepped the fiscal cliff. And that sounds like a good deal; the $600 billion in higher taxes led to an $850 billion increase in the value of U.S. equities, based on the Wilshire 5000 index. Never mind that the benefits don't accrue precisely to those who bear the...